


move the stars for no one (except you)

by Zilentdreamer



Category: Labyrinth (1986)
Genre: Gen, Magic, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-02
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-06-02 16:37:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19445386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zilentdreamer/pseuds/Zilentdreamer
Summary: Where paths are abandoned and worlds are explored in the universe of The Labyrinth.(Prompt fics based off the 100 situations challenge from Livejournal.)- “I have been listening to you, but if you want me to pay attention you need to start saying something new.” She quirked an eyebrow at him. “Like how Ludo’s new rock garden is coming along, or if the Fireys have managed to find where I stuck their heads this time.”





	1. 38. Touch

**Author's Note:**

> So after poking around in my old livejournal I came across the 100 situations challenge and figured I would try to pick it up again and see what I could come up with.  
> To look at the board I'm going off of, you can check it out [here](https://zilentdreamer.dreamwidth.org/4368.html) at my Dreamwidth. For now I'll be posting them in the order I write them, not in the order of the prompts themselves.

The ceramics class had been a last minute adjustment to Sarah’s schedule. 

Sarah had considered taking the class once or twice, half-musing contemplations as she scrolled through the class catalog. There’d been something appealing about the idea of working with her hands, being able to shape and mold, to create. The idea had never borne fruit, until a need for more credits and a few empty hours landed her with the opportunity to see if the class had some merit after all. 

Needless to say the first class was quite the reality check. What the teacher was able to show as a seamless process of molding and spinning the clay, was an entirely different beast once Sarah gave it a try. It was messy and frustrating and nothing she did seemed to go right. The bowl she’d been trying to make had barely made it out of the original lumpy shape, only with a slight divot at the top that wavered dramatically near the edges.

By the time she got home she was stained and tired, hair thrown up into a hasty bun and what felt like drying clay on her face of all things. It had been tempting to stamp her foot and refuse to go back, as if she could obtain any kind of mastery in the allotted time for this class. She would have if she hadn’t needed those credits, and since she couldn’t guarantee she would be able to get into another class if she dropped this one, she knew she had to stick it out.

“As you work, try to move with the clay,” the instructor said to Sarah and the rest of the students in their second class. Sarah barely refrained from rolling her eyes from her seat in the back. Clearly the advice was easier said than followed. 

She did eventually improve. It became a challenge of sorts; a battle waged between her mind, her hands, and the clay. Her hands couldn’t always follow through on what she wanted and more often than not the clay would fold in unexpected moments, collapsing beneath her fingers and earning another sharp huff of frustration. But by the fourth class Sarah could not deny that she was starting to enjoy herself. 

It was during the sixth when something...changed. 

From the moment she sat at the wheel and put her hands on the clay, Sarah felt a strange off-key restlessness come over her. As the clay spun beneath her palms she felt an odd tension gather behind her eyes and she would have pressed her fingers to her temples in an attempt to relieve the pressure if it wouldn’t have ruined the shape she was trying to create. A cup this time, she’d decided before taking a seat, something she could drink her coffee out of or the hot cocoa her mother used to make. 

She held onto that image as the pressure continued to press behind her eyes. It wasn’t painful but there was an awareness that it wasn’t quite right. By the time she finally finished throwing the cup and removed it from the wheel Sarah was gritting her teeth against the relentless pressure. The moment the clay left the wheel, the pressure vanished like a valve suddenly being released. 

Sarah could not contain her gasp as the pressure suddenly vanished. Blinking she endured the confused glances of her classmates and stared at the raw clay cup with no small amount of apprehension. Very strange. Maybe she’d overdone it with the coffee that morning?

She set the cup aside to dry and a few classes later it was dry enough for her to trim the edges and work more decorative lines into the sides. Sarah let her thoughts drift while she worked, and it was only once she declared her work finished that she realized what she’d done. It was rough and there was a chance the lines she’d worked in wouldn’t survive the firing process, but she’d worked the faint lines of the Goblin King’s labyrinth along the continuous curve. 

Once more unsettled she was tempted to push the partially finished cup off her work bench and let it shatter. But she stayed her hand. Curiosity pushed at her, just as it had before when faced with a strange creature’s machinations. Something was happening, and Sarah was curious and intrigued enough to let it. 

The day she brought the cup home she left it sitting in the middle of her counter. 

Sarah knew she was being foolish, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to use it at first. Some innate wariness had her hesitating every time she reached for it. It was hers, she knew that, but there was something else there as well. 

It was late and she was moving into her fourth hour of studying for her Chemistry final when caution gave way to the pragmatic. She was too tired to wash the mugs that had collected in and around the sink and this one was bacteria free, thus available for coffee consumption. So deep into her notes and scribbling questions to follow up with the T.A. for the last meeting, Sarah didn’t notice that her coffee never got cold. 

Her friend Bethany was the one to point it out to her the next time she came over. “Hey, is this one of those new heat conservation cups those ads have been shouting about?”

Sarah glanced up from her Calculus textbook, fingers threaded through her hair and giving little tugs as she debated whether she actually wanted to pull her hair out. “What?” she asked, trying to shake her thoughts back into order. 

Bethany held up the mug, waggling it hard enough a bit of coffee sloshed out and onto her hand. With a yelp she quickly put it back down. “Ow! Seriously, it is right? This is the coffee you gave me two hours ago and it feels like it just came out of the pot.”  
As Bethany abandoned dignity and licked the coffee off of her hand rather than grabbing the napkin that was literally right next to her, Sarah reached out and snagged the mug. “That doesn’t make any sense. Those are contained vessels, they literally have lids and are made of stainless steel. This is a clay mug I made in Ceramics.” Curling her hands around the mug she was surprised to feel the warmth radiating through the sides. Sarah smirked, “Are you sure you didn’t just refill it and forget? I wouldn’t put that past you.”

“I didn’t though. I basically forgot you even gave me the coffee once I started going over the study guide Ms. Carmichael’s gave us. Can I see yours again? I don’t understand how I’m supposed to answer number three.”

The mug and the still warm coffee was forgotten in a flurry of notes and Bethany’s dramatic exclamations of living under a bridge since being a troll was all she was good for (Sarah didn’t have the heart to tell her there might be actual trolls who would object to her encroaching on their territory). It was only later when Sarah was cleaning up when she picked up the coffee mug and was startled to find it was still hot. 

“What on earth?” Sarah dipped her finger into the hot liquid and quickly pulled them back out again. Not hot enough to burn, but just enough to be uncomfortable. As she studied it, she felt some of that same awareness that had come over her while making it. It was a little like when she was little and staring at those magic eye posters. She would stare and stare until she focused her eyes just right, and then she would see it. 

She tapped her finger against the mug and mused out loud, “The coffee stays hot, no matter how long it takes.” Curious she took a sip. It was the perfect temperature. Fresh coffee, but not hot enough to burn her tongue. “It stays the perfect temperature,” Sarah considered. “What I think is perfect anyway. Hmm.” 

It should have been impossible. She wouldn’t have considered it if she hadn’t conquered the Goblin King’s labyrinth to get her little brother back. 

Clearly she’d claimed more than her brother if she was capable of...whatever this was.

Sarah narrowed her eyes in thought and then she smiled. 

By the end of the year Sarah had created quite the collection. 

A small bowl she used to hold small change that gradually started to accumulate it on its own. She no longer had to check under the couch cushions or in the bottom of her purse. If she needed some quarters or nickels she only had to check the bowl near the entryway. The plaque with the small hook she used to hold her car keys. It didn’t matter where she put them down, when she was ready to leave they would always be waiting for her on the hook. The vase that had been her final project kept any flowers fresh as the day they were picked. Some experimenting revealed that she had to pick the flowers as well, but they would last until Sarah decided to replace them with new ones. 

They all accumulated into small things that made life easier. But Sarah had the feeling that was only the beginning.  
Each time she managed to create a new Shaped item, as she’d taken to calling them, she could feel something inside her stretching out. Getting stronger. It all made her rather curious, but not enough to go looking for answers. 

Not yet anyway.


	2. 73. Return

“You’re being stupid.” Hoggle declared. Aiming a kick at a nearby pebble, the dwarf nearly fell when he missed and with a huff of frustration bent over to pick it up and throw it into the water. “Stupider than normal, which is almost impressive.”

Sarah hummed to let him know she was listening. Eyes on the distant horizon she tapped the end of her pen against the underside of her chin. 

“You aren’t even listening to me!” Dipping his fingers into the water Hoggle flicked his wrist toward Sarah.

Startled out of her thoughts as small drops of water landed on her arms and left damp patches on the first page of her notebook, Sarah nearly fell off the rock she was seated on trying to get away. “Hey! Hoggle what was that for?”

Hoggle huffed in blatant frustration and waved his arms again, glaring when Sarah scrambled to another flat rock a few feet away in case he decided to fling more water at her. “Are you going to start listening to me?”

“I was listening to you!” Sarah exclaimed. She rubbed at where the water had left small patches on the paper and sighed. “Look what you did. Now I’m going to have to start a new page.”

“Unbelievable,” Hoggle muttered. He navigated the loose rocks until he could poke one blunt finger into Sarah’s ankle with aggressive intent. “You need to start listening to me before you get us all in trouble.”

Sarah rolled her eyes and flipped the page so the damp spots were tucked away. “I have been listening to you, but if you want me to pay attention you need to start saying something new.” She quirked an eyebrow at him. “Like how Ludo’s new rock garden is coming along, or if the Fireys have managed to find where I stuck their heads this time.”

Hoggle made a noise that was similar to Ludo’s rock summoning roar and a squeaking door hinge. What followed was a rather dramatic amount of flailing and Sarah went back to jotting down notes for a story she was thinking of writing until the dwarf was capable of speech once more. It was a beautiful day within the world of the Labyrinth, the sky it's ever familiar burnt orange as it did its best to reflect the sun’s light from the human world.

The coast of the Eternal Sea was one of her favorite places to sit and brainstorm, or it normally was, if Hoggle hadn’t been especially persistent. “I know what I’m doing,” she informed him, pointing at him with her pen. “You worry too much.”

“You don’t worry enough,” Hoggle shouted back. He pressed his hands to his face and moaned through his fingers in a fit of drama that Sarah thought was a bit much. “After everything you put me through to get out of the Labyrinth, why are you here?”

Genuinely surprised, Sarah blinked at him. “You guys always come to see me.” She hesitated before saying, slowly, “It’s not fair that you guys have to keep coming to me, so I figured I could start coming to you too.” 

Hoggle stared at her, mouth agape before he abruptly shook his head. “We like visiting you.” He kicked at another rock, this one larger than the first. It clattered over the rest of the rocks but stopped short of the line the waves had left on the rocky shore. “And it’s safer for all of us if we visit you, rather than having you come here.”

Sarah stiffened and looked up, her notebook abandoned for the moment. “What do you mean safer?” Turning to glance over her shoulder she glared at where the castle loomed in the distance. “Has Jareth been threatening you?”

Hoggle flinched when Sarah said the Goblin King’s name out loud, lurching forward to shush her. “Don’t say his name,” he hissed. “It will draw his attention.”

“I’m not afraid of him,” Sarah said, still glaring up at the castle. 

“That’s wonderful for you,” Hoggle snapped. “But considering he has power over me I’m just going to keep being afraid of him. It’s safer that way.”

“Has he been threatening you?” Sarah asked again, setting her notebook aside. She closed the cover to keep the pen tucked amongst the pages. “Is that why you don’t want me to come here anymore?” It was a struggle not to take Hoggle’s complaint personally. She loved the Labyrinth with its strange and wonderful creatures, secrets tucked around every corner. 

Hoggle flicked a wary glance at the castle before sighing, his shoulders slumping. “Not exactly,” the dwarf admitted. “He hasn’t said or done anything.” 

Sarah frowned. “Okay...I don’t understand. If he’s not threatening you to keep me away why can’t I visit?”

“It’s because he hasn’t done anything!” the dwarf exclaimed. Surprised by his own vehemence, Hoggle cleared his throat, feet shuffling as he rubbed his hands together. Still confused but willing to hear him out, Sarah waited for Hoggle to pull his thoughts together. “He,” Hoggle jerked his head towards the castle to make it clear who he was talking about, “is king for a reason. He is smarter and more powerful than anyone who calls the Labyrinth their home.”

Sarah nodded, biting back the familiar claim that she made damn sure he knew he didn’t have any power over her. Judging from the look Hoggle gave her, he knew what she was thinking. “You played his game and you won.” Hoggle took a breath. “No one ever wins, Sarah.”

It wasn’t a shock to hear. She remembered the terror as she stumbled through the Labyrinth, every step forward met with two steps back. “I don’t think I would have either, if you guys hadn’t helped me.”

She didn’t know what to think of the way Hoggle looked at her. It didn’t make her afraid as much, but wary. A reminder that as friendly as the dwarf was, he was also a denizen of the Labyrinth, same as Jareth. “Maybe, maybe not. But that we chose to help you at all means something in a place like this.”

Hoggle shook his head. “But that’s neither here nor there. The point is, you won the game, and you were able to go back to your life in the mortal world. As long as you stay there, he can’t touch you.”

“But if I’m in the Labyrinth...he can,” Sarah mused out loud.

Hoggle shrugged. “I don’t know. He hasn’t yet, but that doesn’t mean he won’t. He’s letting you back in Sarah, that’s the only reason you are able to come back. You ended up in the Labyrinth before because he brought you. If he didn’t want you here, you wouldn’t be.”

“I see,” Sarah said, and Hoggle sighed in relief. His relief that was short-lived when Sarah hopped off the rock and began dusting off the seat of her jeans.

“Are you leaving?” Hoggle asked, clearly trying maintain his relief that she had listened to him.

“No. I figured I would go up to the castle and ask him what he’s up to.”

Hoggle’s surprise and horror were so complete it took him several moments to actually comprehend what she had said. “WHAT!!!”


End file.
